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According to sources at The Upset Blog, the Big 12 may have already extended an offer to BYU to join as the tenth member of that conference.

I know, just about anything and everything has been thrown out there in terms of college football expansion. But this story does line up with what little chatter has been coming out of the tight-lipped school in Provo.

First off, we have sources from Yahoo's Deep Shades of Blue saying that BYU and Big 12 representatives have been in contact over the last few days. I'm pretty sure they're not talking about who is going to make it to the World Series.

Then we have ESPN college basketball analyst Andy Katz's interview with WCC Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich. Zaninovich said, "If the Cougars did want to leave, they wouldn't get held up by the WCC." That means that Zaninovich has at least thought about the possibility that BYU isn't going to part of his conference for more than a year.

The only fairly recent story that contradicted this general feeling was a story from Orangebloods.com's Chip Brown, which suggested that BYU had lost interest in joining the Big 12 and that TCU had become the most likely replacement for Texas A&M.

But that story was inaccurate in three ways. First, Brown reported that BYU made $2 million last year, which is true. However, Brown neglected to say that BYU's going to make a whole lot more than that this year as an independent thanks to their contract with ESPN.

Second, TCU doesn't seem to be on the top of the Big 12's list of expansion candidates. Interim Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas has already expressed that there is opposition to adding another Texas school.

And in case you didn't know, TCU stands for Texas Christian University.

Third and most importantly, just because BYU isn't pounding down the Big 12's door like SMU is doesn't mean that the Cougars aren't interested.

There was some overreaction to the Orangebloods.com story by sportswriters at the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune among others. BYU fans understandably became upset at the prospect of BYU turning down a "golden ticket" to an AQ conference.